“Each one of these is individually a crime scene, and the United States is the responsible actor.” — John Walsh

With America preoccupied (as always) with war in the Middle East, another kind of killing is taking place at its back door. Since early September of last year, the United States military has bombed 67 small boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific and assassinated 221 supposed “narco-terrorists.” The first full account of this deadly war is the Washington Office on Latin America’s (WOLA) Killing Spree: Extrajudicial Executions in the U.S. Boat Strike Campaign, a 27,000-word report by Adam Isacson, WOLA’s director for defense oversight, and John Walsh, its director for drug policy.

Under U.S. and international law, this is murder, Isacson and Walsh conclude about a policy they see as premeditated killing of civilians who pose no immediate threat to the United States. Its official name is Operation Southern Spear, designed as a war on terror by an inner circle of Stephen Miller, Pete Hegseth, and Marco Rubio. So the Donroe Doctrine is really a broader MAGA embrace of extra-judicial killings. Trump might be able to point to Latin America on a map, but this official US policy is about far more than geography.

And it even fails as drug policy. The boat strikes target Andean cocaine while fentanyl (produced in Mexico from Chinese synthetics) drives the American epidemic. As Isacson puts it, bombing these boats is like murdering a street-corner dealer and declaring the entire drug problem solved.

The WOLA report’s darkest implication is domestic. The Justice Department memo underpinning the campaign amounts, Walsh argues, to an open license to kill. For an administration that talks obsessively about the enemy within, the boat strikes might be a dress rehearsal. Graham Greene’s quiet Americans have metastasized into the deadly Americans. Only this time they’re filming their own atrocities and boasting about them on social media. The assassination of that street-corner dealer in Peru might be a dress rehearsal for an anti-ICE activist in Minnesota. America’s southern back porch threatens to become its northern front door.

Five Takeaways

• 63 Crime Scenes. 63 attacks, 67 boats, 221 dead, three survivors — announced by near-identical tweets. Title 18 §1111 calls it murder, and it applies on the high seas.

• Narcoterrorism: Two Wars Welded Together. The war on terror fused with the war on drugs; Rubio’s admission: interdiction never worked, so kill without intermediary steps. The Donroe Doctrine makes Latin America first-tier.

• The Wrong War on the Wrong Economy. The strikes hit Andean cocaine while Mexican fentanyl drives the overdose epidemic. Like shooting a street-corner dealer and declaring victory.

• Who Were the 221? Fishermen, migrants, kids paid a couple hundred dollars — the lowest links, where boats are the only roads. Trinidadian families are suing in Boston; an Ecuadorian prosecutor was assassinated.

• Colombia or Chicago. The DOJ memo is an open license to kill: a secret list with no limiting factor. For an administration obsessed with the enemy from within, the high seas are a rehearsal.

About Keen On America

Nobody asks more awkward questions than the Anglo-American writer and filmmaker Andrew Keen.

Website: https://keenon.tv/ Substack: https://keenon.substack.com/ YouTube: https://youtube.com/@KeenOnShow

Read Killing Spree free at wola.org

Chapters:

00:00:31 Introduction: unshrouding the boat-strike secrecy
00:02:23 Killing Spree: the 27,000-word report
00:03:23 The numbers: 63 attacks, 221 dead, 3 survivors
00:04:58 Eleven months of insidious normalization
00:06:25 Narcoterrorism: two wars welded together
00:09:26 Rubio’s admission: interdiction doesn’t work, so kill
00:11:32 Miller, Hegseth, Rubio: the inner circle
00:13:44 The Donroe Doctrine: Latin America goes first-tier
00:14:33 Venezuela as proof of concept
00:15:08 Joint operations: kicking in doors from Ecuador to Peru
00:16:58 The real drug economy: cocaine, fentanyl, and China
00:21:30 Ecuador: from safe to most violent in five years
00:23:46 Gold at $4,000: drugs are just one income stream
00:30:26 Scarface in the White House
00:31:20 The ICC question: can they ever travel again?
00:33:56 Who were the 221? Fishermen, migrants, kids
00:36:07 Boston and the Inter-American Commission: the lawsuits begin
00:36:07 Boston and the Inter-American Commission: the lawsuits begin
00:38:00 Is Cuba next?
00:40:29 An open license to kill: Colombia or Chicago
00:43:20 Digging up Graham Greene
00:46:34 Thanks and goodbye